LONG ISLAND, Maine — Island life in Maine can be rough, especially in the winter.
Ferries are an essential service for the depleted populations who live on the rocky outposts year-round. Painted a familiar yellow, the Casco Bay Line ferries are also a school bus for half a dozen kids who travel from Great Diamond Island to nearby Long Island each day to attend elementary school.
For their efforts, they're greeted by another baker's dozen of their friends, along with the only two teachers at the school.
Marci Train and Katie Norton are neighbors on Long Island and at the school, running classrooms separated by a wall that can be opened to make one large room.
The school building is small and fits right into its surroundings. Nestled between pine trees blanketed in freshly fallen snow when we visited on a Thursday in early March, the school is adorned in cedar shakes. The pair's classrooms, small bathrooms, and a closet-sized office make up the original floor plan. Train explained that students, staff, and boosters fundraised -- with bake sales at times -- to add a small auditorium, art gallery, and a library used by the entire island.
The 13-student roster, split between the two teachers, means classes can be personalized.
"We're really lucky because we really can look at our class and our kids and see who they are and what they need and give them that," Norton explained.
While they follow state and federal guidelines, she said, they don't feel pressure from school boards and parent groups to alter curriculum like districts on the mainland. Thus, Train is able to get creative with her biggest passion: science.
"The whole island is my classroom," she said with a smile. "I get to go out and explore with the kids."
Climate change, erosion, coastal bird diversity – Train showed us photo after photo of her and her students outdoors, carrying out projects and writing notes.
Forget a class aquarium, Train's students are growing their own kelp.
"I think that the only thing better than exploring nature and the magic of nature is exploring it through the eyes of a child," Train said. "It is just amazing."
Her students have felt the impact of this unique teaching style.
"You always get to explore the outdoors; there's always fun projects to do," August, a fifth-grader, said.
"I like it because you get to go outdoors a lot and with most teachers you don't get to do that," Travis, a fourth-grader, explained.
The kids aren't the only ones paying attention.
Train just learned she's one of two teachers in the entire US and UK chosen this year for the American Geosciences Institute award for excellence in earth science teaching. The institute will fly her to Atlanta for a banquet on March 25, where she and Mark Goldner of Brookline, Massachusetts will be honored.
"Through such lessons, which are reinforced each year, students come to understand that opportunities for learning do not stop when the school day or year is over," an institute spokesperson wrote about Train in the award's announcement.
Train knows what she knows and, importantly, what she doesn't. She finds what her students want to learn and she connects the dots.
"I'm more of a tour guide of learning, rather than a teacher," she said. "Because a lot of things that I don't know we learn together."
Her next lesson, though, might be hard to teach on the beach.
"There's some new science segment; I think it's about space," August said. "And I can tell I'm gonna learn a lot."
If anyone can find a way, it's Marci Train.